Wednesday, December 26, 2012

"The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news." -- Bertolt Brecht, "To Those Born Later", part of the Svendborg Poems (1938)

Henry Blodget in his natural element.

On 23 December, Business Insider ran an article on the post-Sandy Hook rush which included two photos taken at a gunshop, the West Coast Armory in Bellevue, Washington. Here is the store on 14 December:

Here is the same store on 20 December:

Blodget explains for his equally clueless readers:

In the days following the massacre of 27 adults and children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, there have been many reports of skyrocketing gun sales.

Second, they worry that the latest massacre might finally wake up America to the absurdity of its gun laws and lead to a clampdown in gun control.

Uh, huh. Well, Henry is out of his element here, being the co-founder, CEO/Editor-in-Chief of The Business Insider, which according to Wikipedia "is a blog about Internet business trends and research."

A former top-ranked Wall Street analyst, Henry is also the host of Yahoo Daily Ticker, a digital video show viewed by several million people a month. He is often a guest on CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and other networks. He has contributed to The Atlantic, Slate, Newsweek International, The New York Times, Fortune, New York, the Financial Times, and other publications. He has written extensively about technology and investing and is the author of The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual: A Consumer's Guide to Investing.

During the dotcom boom of the late 1990s, Henry was a top-ranked Wall Street Internet analyst. He was later keelhauled by then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer over conflicts of interest between research and banking and booted out of the industry.

Henry went to Yale. He was born and raised in New York.

"Keelhauled." Well that's one way of putting it. Wikipedia reports:

In 2002, then New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, published Merrill Lynch e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about stocks which allegedly conflicted with what was publicly published. In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He agreed to a permanent ban from the securities industry and paid a $2 million fine plus a $2 million disgorgement.

So, how about if we limit access to something that factors into every gun massacre that the Constitution doesn't address at all:

Ammunition.

What if we keep semi-automatic weapons freely available but strictly control the manufacture, distribution, and sales of bullets?

You'd still have a civil war, Henry. Actually, attacking the ammunition supply would be guaranteed to outrage the Fudds as well, thereby negating the masterful campaign of the antis to split us apart by convincing the Fudds that they can keep their "good guns" while banning our "bad guns."

Obviously Henry hasn't heard about the Law of Unintended Consequences, Bill Clinton's rules of engagement for the Serb media elite in 1999 or Fourth Generation Warfare. He lives in his Gotham bubble now, a frightened, clueless yet frivolous idiot, selling futures contracts on the next American civil war, blithely unaware of the real world.

He expects, no doubt, that the armed guards of the government will protect his bubble. Here is another Brecht poem that speaks to that misapprehension:

General, dein Tank ist ein starker Wagen.

Er bricht einen Wald nieder und zermalmt hundert Menschen.

Aber er hat einen Fehler:

Er braucht einen Fahrer.

General, dein Bomberflugzeug ist stark.

Es fliegt schneller als ein Sturm und trägt mehr als ein Elefant.

Aber es hat einen Fehler:

Es braucht einen Monteur.

General, der Mensch ist sehr brauchbar.

Er kann fliegen und er kann töten.

Aber er hat einen Fehler:

Er kann denken.

General your tank is a powerful vehicle.

It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.

But it has one defect:

It needs a driver.

General, your bomber is powerful.

It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.

But it has one defect:

It needs a mechanic.

General, man is very useful.

He can fly and he can kill.

But he has one defect:

He can think.

-- "General, Your Tank Is a Powerful Vehicle", in "From a German War Primer", part of the Svendborg Poems, 1938.

An abandoned German tank in a field. -- From the archives at Yad Vashem.

Or, more to the point, Henry, what if those weapons are turned on your safe little green zone if you get the civil war you are soliciting? Just an academic, hypothetical question, of course.

2 comments:

SWIFT
said...

Henry Blodget should be a felon. But, once again the elite show that laws are only for the unwashed masses. He pays out 4 million, but in reality, probably stole a much greater sum. I know the issue is about guns; but the inequality of dispensing justice WILL be a major factor in the coming civil war. The mood in the country is changing, as evidenced by the photo of the gun shop on December 20th. Blue color people like myself are tired of grabbing our ankles and we ain't going to take it anymore.

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Advice on child rearing from my son.

Everyone should grow up with simulated equipment from a heavy weapons platoon. It gives you a more well rounded education and an appreciation for the finer things in life. -- Sergeant Matthew Vanderboegh, United States Army.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

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From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

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The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

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"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

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